Sex-crime cases: As justice stood still, distrust kept building

by JJ Hensley - Sept. 30, 2012 11:01 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

The 11-year-old girl loved horses. The 60-year-old man was a respected trainer and teacher in the community.

The child's family thought nothing of the moments when the two disappeared into the barn at Moonreach Ranch to tend to the tack. The barn was the one place on Ralph L. Carr's property that wasn't visible from the observation area he built for families to watch their children train.

It was in the barn, the girl later alleged, that Carr walked up behind her as she was cleaning a saddle, reached over her shoulder and put his hand down the front of her tank top. Reaching under her bra, he fondled her breasts.

Carr would do it twice more, the girl alleged, before she reported it to her parents while sitting in their backyard in late July 2006. By then, they had noticed she was becoming withdrawn. She spent more time alone in her room and no longer seemed interested in her horse lessons.

Carr, who has since pleaded not guilty to a dozen criminal charges, told investigators that any contact with his students' breasts was purely accidental. His attorney declined to return a telephone call to discuss the case and last week sought to have a reporter removed from a court hearing in the matter.

Sipping sodas around their Peoria kitchen table on a recent evening, the girl and her parents relived that painful moment when she finally opened up about what had been bothering her.

"We were thinking drugs or boys, you know -- you're hoping for normal. But you never expect your child to come out and say ..." Her mother paused, unable to continue.

Her father completed the thought: "We never expected to hear, 'Ralph's been touching me.' "

They cursed. They cried. They hugged.

Then they called local police, who directed them to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which had jurisdiction over the unincorporated area of the county where the abuse was alleged to have occurred. A sheriff's patrol deputy arrived promptly, taking the family's statement that night.

Then, nothing.

It was a shock to this tight-knit family. They live in a middle-class neighborhood, in a white-stucco house with hardwood floors and knickknacks that show how much they love animals, particularly horses. The home includes a shrine to the family's history in law enforcement.

The girl's father told The Republic that he called the Sheriff's Office repeatedly after the initial report. Each time, he said, he was passed to a different detective and left a message. Each failed to return his calls.

Nearly a year passed before a sheriff's investigator followed up on the girl's allegations, the case file shows. By then, she had been through counseling and was taking part in typical high-school activities.

According to sheriff's case records, her family at that point did not want her to relive the nightmare by cooperating with prosecutors. The case was closed in July 2007.

Maricopa County adopted standards for sex-crimes investigations in the mid-1990s. Among the requirements is that detectives promptly follow up with victims in abuse cases.

The decision to report sexual abuse and molestation can be torturous for a victim because the allegations often involve family or trusted friends and acquaintances and can be accompanied by feelings of shame, experts say.

Successful prosecutions often rely on statements given by victims during forensic interviews.

In these vital question-and-answer sessions, specially trained detectives and therapists carefully draw from young victims details of the alleged assaults.

If too much time passes before these important interviews, victims may seek therapy, move on with their lives and become distrustful of law-enforcement officers who failed to act promptly. At that point, they are less likely to cooperate in a prosecution.

In this case, a forensic interview was conducted with the victim three years after the initial report.

Recounting their treatment by the Sheriff's Office, the family's emotions are still raw, alternating among anguish, resignation and anger.

When he finally got in touch with a sheriff's detective, the father knew immediately that the case was closed.

The detectives who closed the case in 2007 cited the family's refusal to cooperate. But the girl's father remembers the interaction with sheriff's deputies differently from the way it is described in the case file. The family wanted to cooperate, the father said, but the investigators didn't seem interested.

"They said it was a 'he said, she said' case," the father said. It was an 11-year-old girl's word against a 60-year-old man's.

"I was furious. I mean, my heart sank. I knew right away I was talking to someone who wasn't even going to go out and talk to him (the suspect)."

There is no indication in the case file that a detective followed up or contacted the suspect until another girl came forward three years later.

The sheriff's report on the closed case noted that the family would gladly help prosecute if others came forward.

In July 2009, another girl reported a similar allegation: that Carr had reached down her shirt and fondled her breasts in his barn a year earlier.

A different sheriff's detective assigned to the case discovered the 2006 complaint in an old database and contacted the Peoria family.

"(Father) told me he tried to pursue it with the Sheriff's Office, that he left messages and finally when a detective contacted him the detective was trying to talk him out of it by saying it was a he said-she said and no likelihood of conviction. (Father) told me he wondered if something would have been done then, would it have prevented this from happening to another victim," sheriff's Detective Geri Edgar wrote in a report. "I told him I wouldn't tell him how or why things were handled then, I could only tell him how I handle things.

"I told him I was going to also find out if there were other victims," Edgar added, "because you have an incident in 2006 and another in 2008, people don't just start and stop with space in between."

Four more girls came forward after the case gained publicity. All have accused Carr of similar conduct between 2002 and 2009.

Carr has pleaded not guilty, and his trial on some of the charges, including the 2006 complaint, began in Maricopa County Superior Court last week. A second trial on the balance of the charges will begin later this year.

The girl who initially reported Carr to the Sheriff's Office is now 17 and a successful high-school athlete.

But her adolescence has been marred by the painful molestation allegations, authorities who were dismissive of them and, now, court hearings.

Reminders of court dates and subpoenas are posted on the family's refrigerator in a space typically reserved for photos and report cards.

If the case had proceeded in 2006, "at this point we would have had a resolution," her mother said. "She would have been able to enjoy the last part of school. She'd be able to start trusting again. Right now, there's no trust in the police, no trust in the justice system."

Reflecting on her experience, the teen spoke in the measured tones of someone twice her age. Dressed in shorts and a sports-team T-shirt, she joked about her pets but turned soft-spoken when discussing the handling of her case.

And she has a sense of guilt. Of the five girls who have come forward, three claim their assaults happened after July 2006 -- when she made her first report.

"If they would have believed me the first time we told them, then those four or five other girls ..." she said, stopping to catch her breath. "It makes me feel like I was the one who caused them to have to go through this. It makes me feel like I'm the criminal."

Ralph L. Carr has denied accusations he molested girls on his property.

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